In Chile, where the average monthly minimum wage income falls $100 short of college tuition costs, students are continuing their winter of kiss-ins, marches and hunger strikes against private, for-profit education and demanding affordable state-run schools. (more)
Chile’s new president, conservative billionaire Sebastian Piñera, came in with a bang and a tsunami warning on Thursday. Just minutes before his swearing-in ceremony, a 6.9-magnitude aftershock rattled Chileans, still shaken from last month’s giant quake, and cut Piñera’s inaugural festivities short.
Sebastian Piñera, considered the clear front-runner in Chile’s presidential race, is a billionaire who owns a media outlet, a stake in an airline and even part of the esteemed Colo-Colo soccer club. If he’s elected, he will end nearly 20 years of leftist rule in the South American nation, but he will need more than 50 percent of Sunday’s vote to avoid a runoff.